The Radical Plasticity Thesis: How the brain learns to be conscious

Consciousness is not an intrinsic property of certain neural states but something the brain learns to do. The brain continuously and unconsciously learns to redescribe its own activity to itself, developing meta-representations that characterize first-order representations. These learned redescriptions, enriched by emotional value, form the basis of conscious experience. Learning and plasticity are central to consciousness; experiences occur only in experiencers that have learned they possess certain first-order states and have learned to care more about some states than others. This is the Radical Plasticity Thesis, an enactive perspective turned both inward and outward. Consciousness involves signal detection on the mind, which is the brain's non-conceptual, implicit theory about itself.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the idea that consciousness is something that the brain learns to do rather than an intrinsic property of certain neural states and not others. Starting from the idea that neural activity is inherently unconscious, the question thus becomes: How does the brain learn to be conscious? I suggest that consciousness arises as a result of the brain's continuous attempts at predicting not only the consequences of its actions on the world and on other agents, but also the consequences of activity in one cerebral region on activity in other regions. By this account, the brain continuously and unconsciously learns to redescribe its own activity to itself, so developing systems of meta-representations that characterise and qualify the target first-order representations. Such learned redescriptions, enriched by the emotional value associated with them, form the basis of conscious experience. Learning and plasticity are thus central to consciousness, to the extent that experiences only occur in experiencers that have learned to know they possess certain first-order states and that have learned to care more about certain states than about others. This is what I call the Radical Plasticity Thesis. In a sense thus, this is the enactive perspective, but turned both inwards and (further) outwards. Consciousness involves signal detection on the mind; the mind is the brain's (non-conceptual, implicit) theory about itself. I illustrate these ideas through neural network models that simulate the relationships between performance and awareness in different tasks.